VIDEO: First 'Unassisted' Backflip By A Car?

Driver Guerlain Chicherit in his Mini Countryman, doing a backflip on Sunday in France.

Thierry Guillot
/ Maxppp /Landov

Originally published on February 19, 2013 1:53 pm

Driving a modified Mini Cooper Countryman, French rally driver Guerlain Chicherit has successfully pulled off what's said to be the first "unassisted" backflip by a car.

The unassisted part, as The Christian Science Monitor says, means Sunday's trick was done using a "static ramp" that didn't move. Others, the Monitor reports, have done backflips in cars — "but with the aid of special ramps with special moving elements to boost the car's rotational movement."

Agence France Presse has the video, as do many others. The Two-Way's legal department suggests we remind everyone: Do not try this at home.

By the way, the video reminds this blogger of the many appearances many years ago at the Cattaraugus (N.Y.) County Fair by Joie Chitwood and his team of stunt drivers. No, they didn't do backflips. But they did drive into a cannon that seemed to blast their cars into the air. And how did they drive all the way around the track on two wheels?